The Mirror

Poem by: kiddo.beans

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It's far from uncommon to hear about somebody's struggle with their body-image and so on. We always hear "oh I wish I looked like so and so", "my thighs are so fat", "my nose is too small", and many more variations of self-deprecation, which is sadly the common-fare of our world today; especially among teenagers, who are in the process of self-discovery, and often in their uncertainty turn their focus to their bodies, and the rest is history.
This poem describes a teenager's relationship with her reflection in the mirror. Of how she views herself, how she believes she is viewed, and a lot more inner turmoil and internal conflict that registers in her heart, yet does not fail to show its tracks in her disordered eating, as well as its evidence on her decaying body. This poem speaks of the pain she goes through every day as she comes to the realization that at the end of the day, she will be the final person to determine who she really is, whether she is beautiful like she so wants to be; and her despair in not being able to deny the voice that constantly tells her that she'll never be good enough, that nothing she does will ever be enough, and the pain of having to fight against her mind on a daily basis.
To her, this is the documentation of the brutality of her reality.

My eyes fall upon you.
You stare back at me.
My fingers shakily reach for you
As they come intact
With your icy cold glass.
My hot tears stream down my cheeks;
And as I stare blankly at you,
You glare back at me.

You tell me the blatant truth.
A truth even words cannot speak.
You show me who I am,
How I look, how I am;
Is it light I see in my desolate darkness?
Shall you be my guide to brightness?

I tremble before you,
I shake, I shiver;
My knees quiver, my eyes desperate.
And you see it all.
You outline my revolting figure -
Of weak, of flabby, of dreary;
You define me, you draw my lines.
But yet, you draw me in;
You see the craving engraved within me.

I revisit you every passing day.
Sometimes in hollow emptiness,
Other times overly-repleted;
But what you tell me is the same -
Reflected in your glass, am I appalling.
Large and heavy, blubber protruding from my limbs;
A reflection certain to regurgitate the gracile.

But you never lie, you never do.
Nor have you ever left me.
You have always stood beside me,
Feeding me with not food but verity.
Your sight pierces through my layers of lard -
Straight to the bone,
And bring upon the chill
I wish to feel,
Of the void in my stomach,
As vacant as the crater in me.

For only you shall tell the truth,
And display the bottomless pit of guilt
And insatiation within me,
Within anyone, who seeks
Their value in the sight of you.

And only you.

In your eyes, will my reflection
Ever speak of beauty?
In my eyes, will my reflection
Ever speak of beauty?